EDIT: There's no need to install this hack now as it has been superceded by Jailbreak 3.1 with similar functionality.
Do not install it and make sure to uninstall it before installing Jailbreak 3.1.
Please use version 0.2 uninstaller even if you originally installed version 0.1.

This hack lets you select the provider of updates for your Kindle.

This hack should survive update to firmware 3.1 and then enable installing/uninstalling hacks.
It does not interfere with jailbreak

After installing, new directory called 'updates-provider' appears in user store.
'providers' subdirectory contains files that illustrate all available options (amazon, hack).
Choose your provider and copy its file to 'updates-provider' root (or just create a file with proper name). Delete all other files.
Make sure you have only ONE file in the 'updates-provider' directory. Multiple files would confuse the switcher (in fact the files are alphabetically sorted and the last one (i.e. 'hack') wins).
If you specify something else than 'amazon' or 'hack', nothing will happen. After selecting your provider, reboot Kindle. New settings will be active after reboot.

When this hack is active in firmware < 3.1 with jailbreak installed:
- when the updates provider is set to 'amazon' you will be still able to install/uninstall any hacks as well as any official Amazon updates
- when the updates provider is set to 'hack' you won't be able to install firmware updates from Amazon (manually or automatically), only hacks

When this hack is active in firmware 3.1 or in firmware < 3.1 with jailbreak uninstalled:
- when the updates provider is set to 'amazon' you will be able to install official Amazon updates only
- when the updates provider is set to 'hack' you won't be able to install firmware updates from Amazon (manually or automatically), only hacks

thanks for this. sounds. good. but what do you mean with "It does not interfere with jailbreak" ? i have a 3.0.1 which is jailbreaked + screen saver hack. what is the best way to get it on 3.1 working ? i assume first uninstall the screen saver hack (not the jailbreak hack), then install your hack, then update to 3.1 and then install again screen saver hack ?

does this mean that if i update to amazon firmware 3.1 and install your hack afterwards. i can jailbreak and/or install duokan on firmware 3.1`?

It's the other way round. First install this hack, then update to 3.1.
This is no 3.1 jailbreak, it just can keep your Kindle jailbroken after updating to 3.1. If Duokan uses the same key as the other hacks then it will be able to install. I don't have any experience with Duokan though.

thanks for this. sounds. good. but what do you mean with "It does not interfere with jailbreak" ? i have a 3.0.1 which is jailbreaked + screen saver hack. what is the best way to get it on 3.1 working ? i assume first uninstall the screen saver hack (not the jailbreak hack), then install your hack, then update to 3.1 and then install again screen saver hack ?

You don't need to uninstall the screen saver hack. On firmware 3.0.x, this hack is just another 'backdoor' for installing hacks. You can have both the jailbreak and the Updates Provider hack installed or just one of them and you'll be still able to install hacks.
But on 3.1, the jailbreak 'backdoor' is not working anymore and having this hack installed is the only way (besides usbNetwork) to install hacks then.

Install this hack, switch the updates provider to 'amazon', reboot, install 3.1 update, change the updates provider to 'hack', reboot your Kindle and you should be able to install/uninstall hacks.

Is there any chance of an update provider hack for Kindle 2? I am making the assumption that there will be further updates to Kindle 2, of course.

I have mine set up just the way I like it, my own screensavers, Georgia 2 font, narrow margins, timeout hack, and Duokan for pdf. I'd like to keep it like this until in breaks! Though I wouldn't say no to page numbers if the update doesn't mess up the hacks!

To put it politely, I'd like to be able to use 3G without living in fear of an automatic update taking a dump on my set-up.

Can this hack be UNinstalled from 3.1 by setting update provider to 'hack' and then running the uninstall for the Update Provider hack? Presumably this would be a one-time thing, used if someone was paranoid about returning a hacked Kindle, since once you were running vanilla 3.1 you wouldnt be able to install/uninstall anything including this hack.

I guess there are two issues. One would be the warranty. Now a cracked screen showing a personal screensaver might be what some folks would like to avoid. But in some cases I have read about - at the point the screen is broken, it might be impossible to UNdo anything anyway.

The other issue is that I think I read that a hack for an earlier kindle disabled updates. While the hacks do not seem to disable updates at this time, and folks are getting 3.1 with the hacks, once 3.1 is intalled you cannot remove the hacks. Folks are concerned that the potential NEXT firmware upgrade might be locked out by the hacks and so that way the ability to remove the hacks if that were to occur.

Can this hack be UNinstalled from 3.1 by setting update provider to 'hack' and then running the uninstall for the Update Provider hack?

As I understand it, yes, with caveats. The updates-provider uninstaller (which requires 'hack' mode to be enabled beforehand) restores the keys that were installed previously (i.e., the Amazon keys, unless you've been doing something unusual.)

However, it would not delete the key file that was originally installed by the jailbreak installer (pubhackkey01.pem); that file no longer has any effect on FW 3.1, but in your scenario, it's presumably still present. If you wanted your system to be 100% clean, you'd need to run the jailbreak uninstaller (and uninstallers for any other hacks) before the updates-provider uninstaller.

This stuff is, clearly, getting pretty confusing, and I'd advise people to be extremely cautious about these sorts of modifications - especially given that if you make the wrong move, you risk completely breaking both official and unofficial upgrades.

Cleaner, maybe. The important thing is to be safe, and ensure that you don't leave the system in a state where neither key is valid. I guess using symlinks might help in that regard, although there's the slightly scary possibility that a future update might specifically avoid reading symlinks, or might just decide to delete everything from /etc/uks except the two known keys.

Now I'm thinking about it, maybe the smartest thing to do would be to bind-mount /etc/uks to a directory under /mnt/us. That way, you'd avoid touching the original files at all; to switch between official and unofficial keys, all you'd need to do would be to rename a directory and reboot. There'd no need to modify the root FS except during the initial installation.

It is; when I was typing my original questions, I had an image of the update-provider hack locking and closing the door behind itself and realising it left the keys inside. Which, I suppose, is kind of like leaving everything as it should be (vanilla 3.1), but I wanted to make sure.

But yeah, I was assuming that when (hypothetically) I uninstalled the update-provider hack from 3.1, I would have removed the SS hack and jailbreak beforehand. But I was wondering if the state things were in at the end of the procedure would really be transparent to, say, a 3.2 update, or whether it might not run because something was 'wrong.'